1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a sample processing system which includes a plurality of sample processing units and a transport unit transporting a sample to the plurality of sample processing units. The present invention also relates to a transport control system and a transport control method.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the past, sample processing systems have been known which include a plurality of sample processing units analyzing a sample such as blood or urine and a transport unit transporting a sample to the plurality of sample processing units.
For example, JP Laid-Open Patent Application No. 11-304808 discloses a sample processing system which includes three processing units, a transport line for transporting racks to these three processing units and a central control section. In this sample processing system, the transport line is divided into three transport line division units corresponding to the processing units, respectively. The central control section is configured to determine a transport destination of a sample rack from among the three processing units and control the operation of the transport line division unit so as to transport the sample rack to the determined transport destination.
In the above-described sample processing system, it is desirable to transport sample racks smoothly.
However, in the above-described Patent Document 1, it is not described in detail how to control the transport line division unit in order to transport a sample rack to the determined transport destination.
The present invention is contrived in view of the problem and an object thereof is to provide a sample processing system which can transport sample racks smoothly.